


I Won't Send Roses

by TaleasOldasTimeandSpace



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: 2017 steve/darcy valentine fic exchange, Darcyland, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, ShieldShock - Freeform, but he's doing his best, mostly fluffy with scattered angst, steve is an awkward marshmallow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 04:04:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9640010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaleasOldasTimeandSpace/pseuds/TaleasOldasTimeandSpace
Summary: The course of true love never runs smooth, especially not if you're a superhero or affiliated with superheroes in any way.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MelyndaR](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelyndaR/gifts).



> For the Darcy/Steve Valentine Fic Exchange. The prompts were Roses, Angst, and the Future. I tried to incorporate them all.
> 
> Happy Valentine's Day, MelyndaR!

Steve had decided, after careful, extensive though, that today, February 14th, he would finally ask Darcy out.  He had everything planned—dinner at a nice restaurant, tickets to see the _Lego Batman Movie_ (not the most romantic, granted, but he knew Darcy was looking forward to seeing it), and maybe a stroll around Central Park, if it wasn’t too cold.  He was wearing a dark blue button-up—Nat said it brought out his eyes, and he needed all the help he could get—and, as he rode the elevator down to her office, he nervously played with a single red rose.

Most people thought Darcy was too modern to care for such things as Valentine’s Day and romance.  But he knew that under the snark and sass—both of which he adored—Darcy was a hopeless, sappy romantic.  It was the way her eyes lit up while talking about her favourite stories, from _Pride and Prejudice_ to _Strange Magic_ , or the way she practically melted when she watched Jane and Thor or Wanda and Vision interact.  He only hoped that maybe, _just maybe_ , she would look at him that way, too.  He’d fallen hard for the spunky brunette, and sometimes he thought she felt something more than friendship for him, as well.  But, as Bucky and Nat were fond of reminding him, he was terrible with women.

Still, there was no harm in asking.  The worst she could do was say no, and they would go back to goofing off in the common room, trading jokes and mock insults, baking—and eating—ridiculous amounts of sugary treats, and consuming pop culture in all its forms.  They were both mature adults, after all, and perfectly capable of being friends no matter what happened.

He could practically hear Bucky, Nat, and Sam snickering in the back of his head.

The elevator dinged open, and he took a deep breath before squaring his shoulders and marching down the hallway to Darcy’s office.  Her door was open, and as he approached, he could hear voices.  Peeking through the door, he could see Jane and Darcy perched comfortably in Darcy’s chairs.  On the desk behind them, there was a truly impressive bouquet of roses that made the single rose he had look depressingly juvenile.  They were probably from Thor.  The Asgardian tended toward the dramatic in his gift-giving.  Steve suspected it was a side-effect of being royalty.

Instead of joining them, he decided to wait in the hall until Jane left.  He didn’t need witnesses, especially not Jane.  She was a sweetheart, but she would tell Thor, who would tell the rest of the team.  The man was incapable of keeping a secret, and Steve would rather keep this between himself and Darcy for the moment.  At least until he knew for sure how she felt about him.

He tried not to eavesdrop, but sometimes enhanced hearing was more of a curse than a blessing.  ‘ _Anastasia_ , huh?’ Jane said.  ‘I didn’t know musicals were _your_ kind of thing.’

He grinned.  Apparently he knew things about Darcy that even her best friend didn’t know.

‘Are you kidding?  I’ve been dying to see it.  I just can’t believe Luke got us tickets!  It’s going to be the best night ever!’

His grin faded.  Luke?  Who was Luke?

‘It’s really generous of him, considering.’

‘That’s why I love the man.’

_Love?_   What?

‘I should hope so!  It’d be awkward if you didn’t.  Now, I need to get back to work.  those roses of yours are giving me a headache.’

‘Philistine!  You wouldn’t say that if they were from Thor!’

He staggered back to the elevator, Jane and Darcy’s laughter echoing in his head.  He’d been prepared for Darcy to turn him down, but to find out she was already in love with someone else?  To find out he didn’t stand a chance, and never had?

_Too late, too late._   He squeezed his eyes shut, leaning against the wall as the elevator took him back to his room in disgrace.  He was always just a little too late.  Too late to find out if there was something between him and Peggy, too late to save Bucky from falling off a train and being tortured for decades by Hydra, too late to defeat Schmidt before the plane was so damaged that he’d had no choice but to crash it, too late to wake up until after almost everyone he knew was dead.

A sharp pain in his hand snapped him back to the present, and he realized he’d been clutching his pathetic rose hard enough to pierce his palm with the thorns.  He drew a shuddering breath.  That pretty much summed up this whole debacle, didn’t it?  Leaving the elevator, he stuffed the rose in the nearest trash can and made his way back to his quarters.  A few rounds with his punching bag would help restore his equilibrium, and maybe if he was really, _really_ lucky, there’d be a mission.  After all, organizations bent on world domination wouldn’t really go in for holidays, would they?

* * *

 

They did not, as it turned out.  And they picked the worst possible way to prove it—by attacking the theatre where _Anastasia_ was playing and kidnapping Darcy.

Because of course they would.

She’d managed to activate her panic button—years of kidnappings made their responses automatic—and it wasn’t long before Steve and the rest of the Avengers were storming the not-so-secret Hydra base.  Once they were inside, it was simply a matter of following the yelling.  Whatever they’d given Darcy this time around made her loud.  And angry.

‘What is _wrong_ with you people?  Do you know how long I’ve waited to see that play?  And you didn’t even have the decency to wait until intermission!  For the love of Mew-Mew, I don’t even work with Jane anymore!  I work in the PR department.  And guess what?  This is NOT GOOD PR!’

Steve sped up, leaving the rest of the team to deal with the defending goons.  If they’d hurt his girl—

Except she _wasn’t_ his girl, and he needed to respect that.  Fine then, if they’d hurt his very good, completely platonic friend, he would personally hit each and every one over the head with his shield.

He found her cell and kicked the door in.  As soon as she caught sight of him, her entire face lit up.  ‘Steeeeve!  You’re here!’  She threw herself into his arms.  ‘My knight in completely unshiny tactical gear!  Which is the smart choice, since you really wouldn’t want to give your position away with unnecessary sparkles, would you?  I knew you’d come!  I tried to tell them it was a bad idea to kidnap me when they showed up at the theatre, but these knuckleheads never seem to learn, do they?  Happy Valentine’s Day,’ she added, and planted an enthusiastic kiss on his cheek.

Bucky and Nat caught up to him about then.  They took one look and their faces split into matching evil grins.  Steve could feel that his face was roughly the same shade of red as Darcy’s dress.  He tried to put some distance between them, but she immediately wobbled, so he scooped her into his arms instead.

She immediately wrapped her arms around his neck and snuggled into his chest.  ‘Mmm, this is nice.’

Bucky tried heroically not to laugh and started choking instead, and Nat’s grin got even wider—which really shouldn’t have been possible, and was slightly unsettling.

Steve shot them his patented Captain America Disapproving Glare, which had no effect whatsoever.  He elbowed past them.  ‘Darcy, are you okay?’

‘Yup,’ she said, popping the P like she was blowing bubble gum.  ‘I feel fiiiiiine.’

‘I’m glad.  Is there anyone else we need to find before we go back home?’  Much as he might want to conveniently “forget” to rescue Darcy’s date, he knew he would never be able to look her in the eye again if he left her boyfriend in Hydra’s clutches.

‘Nope.’  Somehow, she managed to pop the P even more dramatically.  ‘I was the sole and lucky winner of the Kidnap an Innocent Civilian and Deprive Them of Watching the Show They’ve Been Looking Forward to for Months sweepstakes.’  She waved a vague hand in the air.  ‘Yay me.’

‘Sorry about that.  Maybe you can go again?’

‘It won’t be the same.  This was the only time Tilney could make it, and _that_ was only because Luke had to work.’

He blinked.  Surely that hadn’t come out right.  ‘What does your sister have to do with your boyfriend?’ he asked cautiously.

She frowned.  ‘What boyfriend?’

* * *

 

_Eleven hours earlier_

Darcy had decided a long time ago that the fact she was single was not going to keep her from enjoying all the flowery chocolaty goodness Valentine’s Day had to offer.  Who cared that she didn’t have a boyfriend?  Darcy certainly didn’t!  She was a strong, independent woman who didn’t need no man to buy her candy, not when she had a steady income with which to buy her own candy.

So, on February 14th, she had no qualms about plopping an obnoxiously large arrangement of deep red roses and five pounds of assorted Ghirardelli (mostly fudge-filled milk chocolate—Darcy was firmly of the opinion that there was no such thing as ‘too much chocolate’) on her desk.  Gone were the days of parking in a corner of Jane’s lab to make sure none of the mad scientists blew themselves or anything else up.  As the official PR rep for the Avengers, Darcy had her own office, complete with view, overstuffed chairs, and a semi-sentient coffeemaker (the last courtesy of Tony Stark.  She’d named it Jethro).

Jane poked her head in as Darcy was fluffing the roses.  ‘Are you planning on opening a florist shop?’

Darcy bopped her with a rose.  ‘There’s no need to be snarky.  A:  That’s _my_ job, and B:  Not all of us have alien princes waiting around to shower us in flowers, jewels, and the secrets of the universe.  Let me have this.’

‘Only if you let me have coffee.’  Jane flopped into one of the chairs and folded her hands, watching Darcy expectantly.

Darcy rolled her eyes, but went to work on Jethro anyway.  ‘You have your own coffeemaker, Jane.  Right in your lab.  You don’t need to come all the way down here every time you want coffee.’

‘The coffeemaker in the lab hates me, Darcy!’

‘It’s a coffeemaker.’

‘It’s possessed!’  Jane snatched the mug Darcy held out to her and bent over it greedily, like Gollum brooding over the ring in the tunnels of the Misty Mountains.  Darcy half expected her to start muttering about the precious.  ‘You’re the only one who can make it do anything,’ Jane added as she took a sip and closed her eyes in caffeinated bliss.

‘You’ve got a whole army of Science!gremlins to do your dark bidding, Jane.  I’m sure one of them can figure out how to work a coffeemaker.’

Jane pouted over the rim of her mug.  ‘Maybe I just miss hanging out with my best friend,’ she said, widening her eyes and staring at Darcy mournfully.  ‘Staying up all night, talking about science, building equipment…’

Darcy snorted.  ‘Jane, sweetie, half the time you couldn’t tell whether I was in the room or not.  And most of the time I had no idea what you were talking about.  Besides, you were the one who encouraged me to follow my dreams, remember?  “You can’t be an unpaid intern all your life, Darcy.  You were meant for more than bringing me coffee and pop tarts, Darcy!”’  She waved her own mug in Jane’s direction.  ‘Your words, not mine.’

Jane sniffed.  ‘Yeah, well, I didn’t realize you were actually going to listen to me.  You never listen to me!’

‘I think we just established that’s not true.  Anyway, why are you here?  I mean, swiping my coffee, obviously, but shouldn’t you be canoodling with your alien prince boyfriend?  I’da thought he’d be taking you on a hot date to the fanciest restaurant in the Nine Realms.’

Jane blushed, a goofy smile on her face.  ‘Actually, Thor is going to be taking me to Asgard for a picnic and stargazing tonight.’

‘I love it.  It’s so disgustingly sappy.’

Jane sighed dreamily.  ‘Yeah.  What about you?’ she asked, nodded at the roses and chocolate.  ‘That’s your traditional Singles Awareness Day splurge, so I take it you haven’t gotten Steve to make a move?’

Darcy grunted, slinging back her coffee like it was a shot.  That was a mistake.  Once the feeling returned to her tongue, she muttered, ‘I keep telling you, Jane, Steve and I are just friends.  Sure, we hang out together all the time, but he doesn’t think of me that way.  I’m just one of the guys.’

‘You are not now, nor have you ever been, “just one of the guys.”’

‘No, really.  I think I’m too modern for him.’

Now it was jane’s turn to roll her eyes.  ‘Darcy, the man was born in 1918.  _Everyone_ is modern compared to him.’

Now it was Darcy’s turn to sigh dreamily.  ‘You wouldn’t know it to look at him, though.’

Jane snickered.  ‘Yeah, his arms could give Thor a run for his money.’

‘Jane Andromeda Foster, you are in a committed relationship with the Norse god of thunder, and you have no business ogling national treasures.’

Jane leaned forward, waggling her eyebrows.  ‘Darcy Elizabeth Lewis, I may be in a committed relationship, but I have _eyes._   That national treasure of yours has nice arms.  Among other things.’

Darcy blinked at Jane for a moment, before they both dissolved into giggles.  When they’d recovered, she said, ‘Arms or no arms, I do have plans tonight.  Luke has to work, so Tilney dropped the twins off at Mom and Dad’s for the week, and we’re going to see _Anastasia_ on Broadway.’

‘Too bad for Luke.’

‘Eh, he’s not really a musicals kind of guy—still not sure he knew what he was getting into when he married my sister—so I’d say it’s a win all around.  They’ll do something together later, sort of a second honeymoon kind of thing.  Meanwhile, Mom and Dad—especially Dad—will take the opportunity to spoil their grandchildren horribly.’

_‘Anastasia,_ huh?  I didn’t know musicals were _your_ kind of thing.’

‘Are you kidding?  I’ve been dying to see it.  I just can’t believe Luke got us tickets!  It’s going to be the best night ever!’

‘It’s really generous of him, considering.’

‘That’s why I love the man.’

I should hope so!  It’d be awkward if you didn’t.’  Jane drained the rest of her coffee and stood up.  ‘Now, I need to get back to work.  those roses of yours are giving me a headache.’

‘Philistine!’ Darcy yelped in mock outrage.  ‘You wouldn’t say that if they were from Thor!’

Jane stuck her tongue out at Darcy and dove through the door, both of them giggling like crazy.

* * *

 

_The present_

‘So let me get this straight.’  Darcy tried to calm her hysterical laughter, but Steve’s bewildered puppy face was making it difficult.  ‘You thought I was going on a Valentine’s date with my _brother-in-law?’_

He hunched his shoulders and refused to meet her eyes.  ‘I didn’t know he was your brother-in-law.  You’ve never mentioned him before,’ he added defensively.

‘Haven’t I?’  She shrugged.  ‘I’ll have to take your word for it.  The noggin’s a little fuzzy at the moment,’ she added conspiratorially, tapping her head before letting it fall comfortably against his chest, inhaling his sent as she did so.  He smelled of leather, sweat, and patriotism.  And maybe just a hint of gunpowder.  Lovely.  It was a golden opportunity for Steve-cuddles, and she intended to take full advantage.

‘So you’re…free?’ he asked hesitantly.

‘Yuhuh.  I’m free as a…a…completely free individual!’  She swung her legs for emphasis.

She thought she heard him mutter _Oh, thank Mew-Mew,_ but that could have been drug-induced wishful thinking.  ‘Would you, uh, consider maybe…not being free?  With me?’

She let her head loll back so she could squint up at him.  ‘Are you, perchance, asking me out?’

He nodded.

‘Wow, Nat was right.  You really don’t know how to talk to women!’

He laughed ruefully.  ‘Yes, well.  I _did_ have a whole speech planned, but then I thought you were in love with someone else, and that kind of threw everything out the window.’

‘You could have _asked,_ y’know,’ she said, reaching up to boop his nose.

‘And what would I have said?  “Darcy, are you seeing anyone right now, and if you are, would you consider breaking up with them and going out with me instead, since I’m absolutely crazy about you?”’

‘It’d be a start.  Are you?  Crazy about me, that is.’

‘Absolutely,’ he said, his voice dropping to a rumble she could feel in his chest.

‘That’s a relief.  ’Cause I’m kinda bonkers for you, too.’

He grinned.  ‘Yeah?’  His voice had dropped to a whisper, and suddenly his face was very close to hers.  When had that happened?

‘Yeah,’ she whispered back.

‘You’re right, that _is_ a relief.’

Neither were sure who moved first, but suddenly they were kissing.  His arms tightened around her as she cupped his jaw.  It was awkward, since he was still in full tactical gear and she was still slightly loopy.

It was perfect.  Completely, incandescently perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> Darcy and Steve went to dinner and the Lego Batman Movie a couple of days later. There was handholding, cuddling, and a kiss or two. All in all, very romantic. Luke got supervillain insurance when he bought the tickets for Anastasia (it's New York, of course that's a thing), so he was able to get them exchanged for another showing. Darcy and Tilney had a blast, and they met Steve and Luke for coffee after. Now that he knows Luke has no designs on Darcy, Steve gets along with him just fine.
> 
> Come say hi on [tumblr](https://taleasoldastime-andspace.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
